One of my pet peeves is seeing the stark differences in the narrative in the Western tech media about African innovation and innovation in other parts of the world. While cutting edge and futuristic solutions get showcased for those outside Africa, in our case, it is those that “help the African poor” that get attention. We seem to be doomed to the poverty, wars, and corruption narrative, and the only role of tech in Africa is to solve those problems first.
Africa is just not respected by the foreign mainstream media because the typical negative narrative sells more and those who want to make a name from Africa go for shock value. The tech narrative then adapts to the “backward Africa perception.” and focuses on news that it feels “solves the problems” that world sees Africa as having in abundance.
Technology, by its very nature, is deflationary as it tends to make things cheaper over time rather than expensive. I tried to imagine how long it would take for us to make the transition from motorcycle to electric vehicles once again with the help of the Chinese who would make them cheaper and it hit me right there. I was also guilty of thinking in the narrative of a “backward Africa,” making a linear rather than quantum progression.
Others asked if Tesla was coming to Nigeria next after South Africa, and I mentioned that it was not impossible. Luxury brands like Porsche and Jaguar have shops in Nigeria, so why not Tesla? Another thing people forget is that beyond cars, Tesla is an infrastructure company with its “supercharger network” and a data gathering company with its vehicles as AI sensors gathering data and aggregating it for machine learning purposes.